Love Is A Funny Thing
by i-x-ship-x-it
Summary: Is it possible for a person to always be frowning? According to Natsu, it's not and he's going to prove it by making the transfer student, Gray, laugh his pants off!
" _Cute guys make you blush, hot guys make you drool, cool guys make you daydream, but funny guys make you fall in love without ever knowing it."_

 _-Unknown_

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Gratsu Fluff Week – Day 1: Laughter

 **Love Is A Funny Thing**

Natsu had a problem and it's name was Gray Fullbuster.

Well 'it' was actually a 'he': a very handsome, blue-eyed, and black-haired 'he'.

Now let's get some facts about Gray Fullbuster straight. He was a transfer student who had moved from the east coast, he had tried out for the ice hockey team and was now co-captain, and above all else he never smiles. Not even once. From all the times Natsu had seen Gray roaming around the hallways, whether it be with his new clique of friends or that blue-haired girl that was always following him around, he never caught a glimpse of a smile. Never. There was always that pouty frown on his lips and a crease on his slanted eyebrows.

This troubled Natsu greatly. How could a person never smile? That had to be biologically impossible. To Natsu, smiling was second nature. He had been nominated for 'Best Smile' in the yearbook for the past three years and each year he had won. He figured if anyone could get Gray to smile it was him.

So thus commenced 'Operation: Get the Grumpy-Pants to Smile.' Natsu was going to do everything in his power to make the transfer student crack a smile at the very least. He tried to get his best friend, Lucy, in on the plan but she argued how they shouldn't butt into Gray's business when they hardly knew the guy. Natsu struggled to convince her and eventually he gave up.

"It's up to me then." Natsu whispered to himself, determination written all across his face as he laid on his bed. He was trying to conjure up ideas on how to possibly make this guy smile. Natsu had no problem making his circle of friends smile or laugh, but that usually had to do with his stupid antics that ended up biting him back in the butt. In order for Gray to see that, it would require them to spend time together after school but like Lucy had mentioned, he hardly talked to the guy and Gray probably had hockey practice at the time.

Natsu felt himself frown. "This is tougher than I thought."

There had to be a way for him to work his funny magic on him during school hours without it intervening with their club activities and classes.

Wait.

Natsu bolted upright, grinning brightly. "That's it!" How could have he completely forgotten? Gray was Natsu's lab partner in chemistry. They sat right next to each other which was the perfect setting to strike up a conversation, or better yet, to tell him jokes! Yes, Natsu would tell jokes to Gray during labs. Gray was bound to find a few of them funny which will make him laugh, therefore make him smile. It was perfect, he had found his game plan.

Natsu went over to his desk and pulled up his laptop. He didn't know a lot of jokes but he was sure to find some great ones on the internet.

"This is going to be easy."

At least that was what he had originally thought.

Natsu had taken the very best jokes, well at least the ones that had made him laugh the hardest, and wrote them down on a piece of paper to take to school. So he goes into his chemistry class, ready to make Gray's grumpy ass laugh, but instead all his jokes are received with a scowl or an unimpressed stare. All of them!

"Did you know you can drink lava? But only once."

Unimpressed stare.

"What happens when you put Nutella on salmon? You get salmonella."

Scowl.

"What's the difference between a dirty bus stop and a lobster with breast implants? One's a crusty bus station and one's a busty crustacean."

"Are you reading that off of notecards?"

"Shut up!"

In short, all that accomplished was for Natsu to become greatly irritated at Gray. That bastard had the audacity to mock him for reading the jokes off of his notecards, even when he was doing all this to make him laugh!

But no matter how much that had irritated Natsu, he was not going to give up! His stubborn pride did not allow him to. He would move forward, no matter how much of an asshole Gray turned out to be. He said he was going to make Gray smile and goddammit he will!

A few days passed and still no luck. Gray was still an asshole, a very handsome and grouchy asshole. But today felt different. He felt that today might be the day. The previous night he had memorized his jokes planned for today. After that asshole comment about reading off of notecards, he made sure that today he wouldn't need them.

The bell rang indicating the end of lunch. Natsu grabbed his bag and began to head towards his chemistry class alongside Lucy, who was also in the class. As they approached the entryway, Lucy turned to Natsu.

"Natsu, I really think you should stop with the whole trying to make Gray laugh thing."

"It's called 'Operation: Make the Grumpy-Pants Smile.'" Natsu corrected her.

Lucy let out an exasperated sigh. "Whatever it's called. You should stop. Gray looks like he doesn't appreciate what your doing. I feel like he might snap if you continue pestering him."

Natsu shrugged. "He's not going to snap, trust me. I feel like I'm close. Yesterday, when I told him that one joke about the penguins his lip twitched!" Lucy stared him, obviously confused. "Usually he gives me a scowl or an unimpressed look or some rude-ass comment, but yesterday his lip twitched like if he wanted to smile."

Lucy sighed, knowing there was no way to change Natsu's mind once it was set on accomplishing something. "Fine. Carry on. Just remember: I warned you." With that being said, they entered the classroom and took their respective seats alongside their partners.

Natsu usually greeted Gray with a smile, he read somewhere that smiles could be contagious, but this time Gray was staring blankly outside the window. He was going to say something, but the teacher entered the class at that point and began to take attendance.

The class droned on, agonizingly slow in his opinion. Natsu was anxious. He wanted to tell Gray the jokes he had memorized last night before it escaped his mind, but time did not want to speed up. When at last they were dismissed to perform the lab with their partners, Natsu turned so sharply at Gray he nearly gave himself whiplash.

Gray had already placed his safety goggles on and was staring intensely at the set of instructions written on the handout. He grinned and poked Gray's arm. "Hey, Gray."

Gray sighed deeply. "Now what?" He turned to frown at his lab partner.

"What happens to nitrogen when the sun rises?"

He was silent which Natsu always took as a sign to continue.

Natsu could barely hold in his giggles as he replied. "It becomes daytrogen." As soon as he said that, Natsu could no longer hold onto his laughter. He laughed, but Gray just gave a groan at the cheesy joke before turning back to the experiment at hand.

When he realized that Gray was not laughing alongside him, his laughter ceased. Dammit! He was so sure that would get him to laugh. No matter. He had another one up his sleeve that was twice as funny!

Natsu poked Gray's arm again. "Hey, Gray."

Gray's frown deepened as he turned to his lab partner once more.

"What?"

"What do you think about tattoos?"

Gray's frown dissipated into a look of confusion. He was so sure it would be another one of his lousy jokes. "Tattoos?"

"Yeah. 'Cause I was thinking of getting tattoos of dogs on my arms and then getting really buff so when I see a fly cutie I can be like, 'Excuse me, but do you know where a vet is? 'Cuz I've got some _sick puppies_.' And then I'll flex so hard my shirt sleeves rip and they're blown away by my arms, my devotion to dogs, and my sense of humor."

Natsu howled in laughter as he finished telling his joke. He was clutching his sides and banging his fist on the table as he tried to calm down his laughter.

Gray on the other hand stared blankly at the idiot in front of him, laughing at his own idiotic joke. He was unimpressed. "I've heard that one before."

At that, Natsu's laughter immediately stopped. "Oh, come on! That was hilarious! Who told you that one?"

"Lyon."

Natsu groaned loudly and banged his head against the desk. This was hopeless. Stupid Gray and his lack of humor. Natsu began to silently curse Gray as he continued to mope with his head resting on the table.

"Hey! Don't just sit there. Help me out. We've got to finish this before the class ends and I don't want to stay after school to finish it."

He sat up and with a gloomy expression he reached over to put on his safety goggles. Natsu frowned. They had accumulated quite a bit of dust so he blew on them. He placed them on and was ready to ask Gray what he wanted him to do, when his nose began to tickle from the dust in the air.

Natsu twitched his nose trying to get rid of the impending sneeze. He sniffed and pinched his nose tightly, trying to kill the sneeze. Once the urge to sneeze left him, he let go of his nose and took one last sniff.

Natsu looked over to Gray when he let out a loud sneeze accompanied by a burp and a fart. Natsu had a look of pure shock at what he had just accomplished. He had managed to sneeze, burp and fart all at the same time!

He clutched his stomach as he groaned. "Something didn't go right there."

As Natsu tried to process what the hell had just happened with his gastro system, from his peripheral vision he saw Gray was shaking slightly with his head down.

This worried Natsu. What happened? Did he snap like Lucy said he would? Is he allergic to farts or something?

"Gray?" Natsu asked as he placed a hand on his shoulder.

At this Gray lifted his head and let out a booming laugh. Natsu was shocked. Gray was laughing. Gray was actually laughing and pretty hard, too. He had tears running down his flushed cheeks as he was clutching his stomach. He tried to speak but his bubbling laughter didn't let him get out more than four words. "You...sneeze...burp...fart..."

Natsu was still in shock as he just stared at Gray. He was now pounding on the table like he had done a few minutes ago in an attempt to calm himself down. It wasn't before long that Natsu couldn't help himself but smile alongside Gray. He ignored the fact that Gray was most likely laughing at him, and instead focused on the fact that he had accomplished his goal of making this grumpy asshole laugh whole heartedly.

As Natsu continued to listen to the melody of Gray's laugh, he felt his chest grow incredibly warm and his stomach knot into pretzels. He didn't understand why but hearing Gray's laughter and knowing that he had been the reason behind it, left a very pleasant feeling in his heart. It felt nice, he concluded. He didn't want this feeling to go away, but soon Gray regained his composure once more. He was still stifling chuckles, but for the most part he was calm. Gray let out a content sigh before turning to Natsu.

"Man, I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard."

Natsu's eyes widen as he stared at Gray's lips. He was smiling. Gray was smiling, at him nonetheless! Natsu couldn't contain his excitement any longer.

"Yessss! You smiled! I did it!"

As Natsu whooped loudly on his seat, Gray raised a confused brow. "What are you talking about?" That was when it hit him. "Wait, you mean to tell me that all those lame-ass jokes were your attempts at making me smile?"

Natsu's brow twitched in annoyance and his lips pouted. "They weren't lame. I actually thought they were funny. You're just a humorless asshole."

Gray ignored Natsu's insults and stiffened up.

"You were trying to make me smile? Why?"

Natsu pretended to pick something off the surface of the desk in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. Who knew it would come down to this!

"Well, yeah. I noticed you kept frowning all the time ever since you transferred here and it bothered me. I've won 'Best Smile' three years in a row, y'know? So I thought if anyone could make you smile, I could do it."

Fuck, this was some really embarrassing shit to say! Natsu hated lying more than anything so there was no way he was going to lie himself out of this one.

Gray sat silently for a while before speaking. "But why?"

Natsu snapped. "What do you mean 'why'? I just told you!"

His blue eyes finally dared to meet Natsu's brown ones. Gray was blushing, he was embarrassed! "No, but I mean why me? You didn't have to do this. Besides you hardly know me, so why?"

Now it was Natsu's turn to be silent. He thought about it for a minute before gazing directly into Gray. "Because I hate it when people don't smile. People always look their best when they're smiling. I wanted to see you smile, so I took matters into my own hands."

Gray was taken aback by Natsu's honesty and sincerity. He broke away his gaze from Natsu. "Yeah, well sometimes there isn't something to smile about."

Natsu frowned at this. "I don't think so. I think there is always something to smile about."

"Not when you're in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people surrounding you."

Natsu realized that Gray must be feeling homesick, he missed the east coast. That's probably why he was always frowning despite being surrounded by his new friends and even being apart of the school's team. He was sad and lonely.

"You know, I was a transferred student here, too."

Gray looked up, surprised at Natsu's words. "You were?"

Natsu shrugged. "Yeah, but I didn't move from the east coast or anything like that. Just moved several cities over from my hometown. I remember I felt exactly how you're feeling."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I was pretty mopey and sad. I felt homesick all the time and I wanted to go back to where all my friends were, but I realized something."

He paused before looking at Gray with possibly the biggest smile he had ever seen.

"The more you mope around the longer it takes for you to move forward and see what's in front of you. Sure I missed all my friends back home, but I had made new friends here and once I opened up to them, it took the sadness away."

Gray simply stared at Natsu, shocked that anyone in this school could relate to what he was feeling. He had made new friends here, but just like Natsu said, had yet to open up to them. He just surrounded himself by people to avoid feeling lonely, but that wasn't going to go away until he actually opened up.

"Alright class, time's up!"

"Shiiiiiiiit! We didn't end up doing anything for the experiment. Gray, hurry and pass me those tube thingies!" Natsu frantically tried to finish the experiment single handedly in the little time they had before the teacher came up to their table to examine their final result.

Gray couldn't help but let out a small chuckle. What an idiot.

In the end, they had to finish the lab after school in detention. It wasn't so bad. They finished the experiment fairly quick and were able to leave soon afterwards, but both had missed club activities. Natsu moped as they exited through the school's front gates. "Man, and today we were going to have a scrimmage against that other school's basketball's team. I was all fired up for that."

Gray couldn't help but smirk at his dejected face. "I bet you would've gotten your ass handed to you."

"Fuck you! I would've beaten their asses!" Natsu snapped back angrily.

Gray chuckled at Natsu's fiesty reaction. At hearing that small laugh, Natsu's stomach once more twisted in knots and his heart skipped a beat. It seemed that Gray's laugh was going to have this permanent reaction on him.

As they walked a little further down the sidewalk, Natsu's stomach growled loudly.

He hugged his stomach. "I'm starving! I need food."

Natsu then got an idea. "Hey, Gray. Have you been to that Chinese restaurant by Strawberry Creek?" Gray shook his head. He smiled. "If you're hungry, how about we go eat there together?"

Realizing what he said, he scratched the back his head awkwardly before hastily adding, "If you want. You don't have to or anything."

Gray smiled at his awkwardness. "Sure. I'm down for some Chinese food."

Natsu smiled back. "Great! I'll pay if you-" He patted down his pants before dread hit him. "Shit! I forgot my wallet! Fuck."

"It's okay. I'll pay."

Natsu looked up at Gray. "Are you sure? You don't have to."

Gray's cheeks tinted pink before he mumbled out a response. "It's fine. Take it as an apology for being such an asshole to you these past few days."

Natsu smirked tauntingly at Gray before he pinched one of Gray's cheeks. "Who knew that underneath that ice cold exterior you were actually such a big softy?"

Gray slapped his hand from his cheek and grumbled. "Shut up before I make you eat from the dumpster!"

Natsu laughed brightly as they both made their way down the street. Who knew his jokes would've landed him a date? He guessed love was a funny thing.

 **The End**

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 _A/N: All the jokes I used were from tumblr, I'm not funny enough to come up with my own! Anyways, that whole sneeze/burp/fart thing happened to one of my friends, so it is possible!_


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